Analyzing Reading Standards for
Assessment Planning
2014 New Mexico Assessment Conference:
Assessment Best Practices to Drive Instruction
Presented by Angie LaBounty
DAY ONE: July 28, 2014
3:15-4:45 PM
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Workshop Goals
1. I understand the shifts in thinking regarding
assessment design with PARCC.
2. I know how to determine what
mastery/proficiency looks like and how to
ensure consistency on my team or in my
building.
3. I can create or modify existing test items to
ensure the appropriate level of rigor.
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“Standards are
meaningless until you
define how you will
assess them.”
Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, Driven by Data
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Points to Ponder…
How do you currently assess students in the
area of reading?
What percentage of evidence you gather
from students would you consider to be
summative? Formative?
How do you use the results?
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Question #2
How Will We Know if
Students are Learning?
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Assessment occupies such a central position
in good teaching because we cannot predict
what students will learn, no matter how we
design our teaching.
This is why assessment is THE central process
in instruction. Students do not learn what we
teach. If they did, we would not need to keep
gradebooks. We could, instead, simply record
what we have taught.
~Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment, 2011
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Points to Ponder
Assessment can no longer be about whether a
student’s response is simply right or wrong.
We must, instead, have assessment data that tells
us to what level the student knows the
material…which then helps me know what to do
next to help them learn more.
Briefly discuss…what does this mean for your
work? What would this mean for students?
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PARCC’s Fundamental Advance
PARCC is designed to reward
quality instruction aligned to
the Standards, so the
assessment is worthy of
preparation rather than a
distraction from good work.
www.parcconline.org
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PARCC’s Core Commitments to
ELA/Literacy Assessment Quality

Texts Worth Reading: The assessments will use authentic texts
worthy of study instead of artificially produced or commissioned
passages.

Questions Worth Answering: Sequences of questions that draw
students into deeper encounters with texts will be the norm (as in
an excellent classroom), rather than sets of random questions of
varying quality.

Better Standards Demand Better Questions: Instead of reusing
existing items, PARCC will develop custom items to the
Standards.

Fidelity to the Standards (now in Teachers’ hands): PARCC
evidences are rooted in the language of the Standards so that
expectations remain the same in both instructional and
assessment settings.
www.parcconline.org
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What Are the Shifts at the Heart of
PARCC Design (and the Standards)?
1.
Complexity: Regular practice with
complex text and its academic language.
2.
Evidence: Reading and writing grounded
in evidence from text, literary and
informational.
3.
Knowledge: Building knowledge through
content rich nonfiction.
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The CCSS Shifts Build Toward
College and Career Readiness
for All Students
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Nine Specific Advances in the PARCC
ELA/Literacy Assessment Demanded
by the Three Core Shifts. . .
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Shift 1: Regular practice with complex
text and its academic language
1.
PARCC builds a staircase of text complexity to ensure
students are on track each year for college and career
reading.
2.
PARCC rewards careful, close reading rather than racing
through passages.
3.
PARCC systematically focuses on the words that matter
most—not obscure vocabulary, but the academic language
that pervades complex texts.
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Shift 2: Reading and writing grounded in
evidence from text, literary and informational
4.
PARCC focuses on students rigorously citing evidence
from texts throughout the assessment (including selectedresponse items).
5.
PARCC includes questions with more than one right
answer to allow students to generate a range of rich insights
that are substantiated by evidence from text(s).
6.
PARCC requires writing to sources rather than writing to
de-contextualized expository prompts.
7.
PARCC also includes rigorous expectations for narrative
writing, including accuracy and precision in writing in later
grades.
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Shift 3: Building knowledge through
content rich nonfiction
8.
PARCC assesses not just ELA but a full range of reading
and writing across the disciplines of science and social
studies.
9.
PARCC simulates research on the assessment, including the
comparison and synthesis of ideas across a range of
informational sources.
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Students’ Command of Evidence with
Complex Texts is at the Core of Every
Part of the Assessment!
So. . .
Two standards are always in play—whether they
be reading or writing items, selected-response or
constructed-response items on any one of the four
components of PARCC. They are:

Reading Standard One (Use of Evidence)

Reading Standard Ten (Complex Texts)
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3 Innovative Item Types That Showcase
Students’Command of Evidence with
Complex Texts



Evidence-Based Selected Response (EBSR)—Combines a
traditional selected-response question with a second selected-response
question that asks students to show evidence from the text that
supports the answer they provided to the first question. Underscores
the importance of Reading Anchor Standard 1 for implementation of the
CCSS.
Technology-Enhanced Constructed Response (TECR)—Uses
technology to capture student comprehension of texts in authentic ways
that have been difficult to score by machine for large scale
assessments (e.g., drag and drop, cut and paste, shade text, move
items to show relationships).
Range of Prose Constructed Responses (PCR)—Elicits evidence
that students have understood a text or texts they have read and can
communicate that understanding well both in terms of written
expression and knowledge of language and conventions. There are four
of these items of varying types on each annual performance-based
assessment.
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End-of-Year Assessment
(Grade 3):
“How Animals Live”
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Understanding the End-of-Year
Assessment



Students will be given several passages to read closely.
EBSR and TECR questions will be sequenced in a way
that they will draw students into deeper encounters with
the texts and will result in thorough comprehension of
the concepts to provide models for the regular course of
instruction.
Will draw on higher order skills such as critical reading
and analysis, the comparison and synthesis of ideas
within and across texts, and determining the meaning of
words and phrases in context.
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Texts Worth Reading?
•
Range: Follows the requirements in the
standards to make use of informational texts,
including history, science, and technical
passages (50% of the points in grades 3-5 are
to come from informational texts).
•
Quality: This is an example of a science
passage from a third-grade textbook.
•
Complexity: Quantitatively and qualitatively,
the passages have been validated and deemed
suitable for use at grade 3.
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Questions Worth Answering?
On the following pages there is one
Evidence-Based Selected-Response Item
and one Technology Enhanced
Constructed-Response Item that challenge
students’ command of evidence with
complex texts.
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Grade 3 Evidence-Based SelectedResponse Item #1
Part B
Part A
What is one main idea of “How
Animals Live?”
a.
There are many types of
animals on the planet.
b.
Animals need water to live.
c.
There are many ways to sort
different animals.*
d.
Animals begin their life
cycles in different forms.
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Which sentence from the article best
supports the answer to Part A?
a. “Animals get oxygen from air or
water.”
b. "Animals can be grouped by their
traits.”*
c. "Worms are invertebrates.”
d. "All animals grow and change over
time.”
e. "Almost all animals need water,
food, oxygen, and shelter to live."
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Aligns to the Standards and
Reflects Good Practice


Specific CCSS alignment to:

RI.3.1 (evidence).

RI.3.2 (main idea).

RI.3.10 (complex text).
While this is an example of a less complex item—
one where the main idea and details to support it
are explicit and readily found—students must
provide evidence for the accuracy of their answer in
Part B, illustrating one of the key shifts: use of
textual evidence.
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Grade 3 Technology-Enhanced
Constructed-Response Item
Drag the words from the word box into the correct
locations on the graphic to show the life cycle of a
butterfly as described in “How Animals Live.”
Pupa
Adult
Egg
Larva
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Aligns to the Standards and
Reflects Good Practice


Specific CCSS alignment to:
 RI.3.1 (use of evidence).
 RI.3.3 (relationship between events).
 RI.3.10 (complex texts).
Reflects the key shift of building knowledge from informational text:



students must apply their understanding of the text to complete the
graphic.
requires explicit references to the text as the basis for the answers
rather than simply guessing.
Whereas traditional items might have asked students to “fill in one
blank” on a graphic (with three steps already provided), this
technology enhanced item allows students to demonstrate
understanding of the entire sequence of the life cycle because none
of the steps are ordered for them.
www.parcconline.org
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1. Cite specific textual
evidence.
Standards 2-9
10. Read complex texts.
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Let’s Practice – We Do 

Find your “ELA/Literacy: Grade 3” Packet

Turn to page 5 and read the questions that
coincide with the first story, “Johnny Chuck
Finds the Best Thing in the World”.

Review the question stems with a table
buddy. What are common characteristics?
How are they similar to/different from the type
of questioning you currently use with your
students?
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Cognitive Rigor and
Depth of Knowledge (DOK)

Level 1: Recall and Reproduction
Requires eliciting information such as a fact, definition, term,
or a simple procedure, as well as performing a simple algorithm
or applying a formula.

Level 2: Basic Skills and Concepts
Requires the engagement of some mental processing beyond
a recall of information.

Level 3: Strategic Thinking and Reasoning
Requires reasoning, planning, using evidence, and
explanations
of thinking.

Level 4: Extended Thinking
Requires complex reasoning, planning, developing, and
thinking most likely over an extended period of time.
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Why Depth of Knowledge?
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Bill Daggett: ICLE Rigor
and Relevence Framework
Retrieved from:
http://www.leadered.com/p
df/Rigor_Relevance_Frame
work_2014.pdf
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Remember…
Assessment can no longer be about whether a
student’s response is simply right or wrong.
We must, instead, have assessment data that tells
us to what level the student knows the
material…which then helps me know what to do
next to help them learn more.
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Let’s Practice – You All Do 

Choose a text passage from your respective
grade level band.

TASK 1 (10 minutes):


Individually read your text. Stop and jot as you
go.
Begin answering the questions or responding to
the tasks that coincide with your text.
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Let’s Practice – You All Do 

TASK 2 (15 minutes):



Share your responses with another colleague or
two who read the same text.
Discuss the evidence you used from the text to
respond.
Find the “PARCC Sample Items and
Tasks Review” sheet in the back of your
handout.

Discuss the first three questions and record
key ideas you hear or dialogue around.
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Let’s Practice – You All Do 

TASK 3 (10 minutes)

Points to Ponder…
• Where would my students succeed?
• Where would my students stumble?
• How does my grade level build before or from the
rigor of this task?

TASK 4 (10 minutes)

Share-out with the large group.
• Succeed? Stumble?
• Next step?
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Let’s Wrap It Up – All Together

Important Points Worth Remembering

Questions we still have moving forward
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Workshop Goals – Revisited
1. I know how to unpack standards and determine to what level
students need to understand the content represented in the
standard.
2. I recognize the importance of collaboratively working with my
colleagues to unpack and prioritize the standards in order to
determine the most essential content to be monitored.
3. I understand what a learning progression is – and what it isn’t –
in order to ensure accurate depth of knowledge for students.
4. I recognize that teachers need better professional development
to enhance their expertise and I commit to creating structures in
my school or district that both support their learning and allow
me to learn alongside them.
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Thank You!
alabounty@isd622.org
@angielabounty
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